[GRASS-PSC] RFC1 vote reminder
Scott Mitchell
smitch at mac.com
Wed Mar 21 16:52:17 EDT 2007
Sounds like consensus is building.
I have edited the RFC in CVS then, feel free to comment/revise/revert:
[smitch at gracilis rfc]$ cvs diff -u RFC1_PSC.dox
Index: RFC1_PSC.dox
===================================================================
RCS file: /grassrepository/grass6/rfc/RFC1_PSC.dox,v
retrieving revision 1.5
diff -u -r1.5 RFC1_PSC.dox
--- RFC1_PSC.dox 12 Mar 2007 11:34:21 -0000 1.5
+++ RFC1_PSC.dox 21 Mar 2007 20:48:57 -0000
@@ -15,9 +15,9 @@
determines membership, and makes decisions on GRASS project issues.
"The GRASS Project" is defined as the GPL-licenced GIS software known
as the
-Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, together with the
surrounding
-development, distribution and promotion infrastructure currently
headquarted
-at ITC-irst, Trento, Italy.
+Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, which at the time of
this writing
+has code hosted in a CVS repository at Intevation GmbH, and a web
and mailing
+list presence at http://grass.itc.it.
\section tor Terms of Reference
@@ -115,12 +115,14 @@
\section composition Composition of the Committee
-Michael Barton, Dylan Beaudette, Hamish Bowman, Massimiliano
Cannata, Brad
-Douglas, Paul Kelly, Helena Mitasova, Scott Mitchell, Markus
Neteler, and
-Maciej Sieczka are declared to be the founding Project Steering
Committee.
+Initial PSC membership was decided based on a nomination and
informal voting
+period on the community's mailing lists. Michael Barton, Dylan
Beaudette,
+Hamish Bowman, Massimiliano Cannata, Brad Douglas, Paul Kelly,
Helena Mitasova,
+Scott Mitchell, Markus Neteler, and Maciej Sieczka are declared to
be the
+founding Project Steering Committee.
On 21-Mar-07, at 15:11 , Helena Mitasova wrote:
>
> On Mar 21, 2007, at 2:52 PM, Paul Kelly wrote:
>
>> Hello Helena
>> Yes, I got your earlier e-mail - sorry I didn't realise it hadn't
>> gone to the list.
>>
>> On Wed, 21 Mar 2007, Helena Mitasova wrote:
>>
>>> I have emailed a suggestion to identify it as a "GRASS, an OSGeo
>>> project" which makes
>>> it unique and well defined and the participation in OSGeo will
>>> ensure that it does not
>>> get mixed with other past or future GRASS-named efforts as there
>>> will be only one
>>> GRASS recognized by OSGeo.
>>
>> I see where you're coming from with that and definitely think in
>> the future it will be a really clear unambiguous way of specifying
>> it - and good for GRASS - but right now I feel it might be a kind
>> of chicken and egg situation - we have to have this document
>> correct and the PSC properly in place for GRASS to be accepted as
>> an OSGeo project, so it just doesn't seem right to include that in
>> there now. I'm not sure - if I as I was saying earlier we could
>> update the PSC later to change things like this then that could be
>> done, but now I am coming round more to Scott's viewpoint that the
>> GRASS project paragraph should just describe unambiguously at this
>> moment in time which project is being governed by the PSC and
>> brought into OSGeo.
>>
>> Good idea though - my mind still confused over the issue.
>
> you are right - it would be good for this vote to include what is
> GRASS right now (then I would say -
> Markus let us know what do you think would be best to use -
> Intevation CVS link or your foundation
> or both?)
> After we become official OSGeo project we can develop a more long
> term definition - maybe OSGeo will have some guidance
> that will be useful for all projects.
>
> Helena
>>
>>> but apparently that email did not get posted - for some reason I
>>> get all the emails but cannot post to the list.
>>>
>>> Also as Michael has pointed out the document does not say clearly
>>> that the members
>>> of the PSC listed in the document were elected - it now sounds as
>>> if they were appointed or selfdeclared.
>>
>> Yes I agree now it's good to make this clear - and Scott's
>> proposed amendment does this nicely I think.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>>> Paul, I hope at least you will get this, I will try to fix my
>>> subscription meanwhile.
>>>
>>> Helena
>>>
>>> Helena Mitasova
>>> Dept. of Marine, Earth and Atm. Sciences
>>> 1125 Jordan Hall, NCSU Box 8208,
>>> Raleigh NC 27695
>>> http://skagit.meas.ncsu.edu/~helena/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mar 21, 2007, at 2:22 PM, Paul Kelly wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello Michael,
>>>> Thanks for your response to this.
>>>> On Wed, 21 Mar 2007, Michael Barton wrote:
>>>>> I just looked at what is in the cvs.
>>>>> 1. It still has reference to ITC and Trento. I thought this was
>>>>> to be
>>>>> removed.
>>>> I was waiting for suggestion of a replacement - I think if we
>>>> just remove "headquartered at ITC-irst, Trento, Italy." then the
>>>> description loses a lot of its meaning. Maybe that isn't
>>>> important. Probably I'm just being paranoid about it.
>>>> I have however been thinking a lot and can't think of anything
>>>> clearer and simpler than defining the GRASS project as the
>>>> community based around the CVS server, mailing lists and
>>>> website: take those away and we'd be nothing. I guess the issue
>>>> is whether describing them as hosted by Intevation and IRST is
>>>> the best way of being specific, or if there's another way. As an
>>>> alternative to "headquarted at...", I thought perhaps instead:
>>>> -------------------------------------------
>>>> Index: RFC1_PSC.dox
>>>> ===================================================================
>>>> RCS file: /home/grass/grassrepository/grass6/rfc/RFC1_PSC.dox,v
>>>> retrieving revision 1.5
>>>> diff -u -r1.5 RFC1_PSC.dox
>>>> --- RFC1_PSC.dox 12 Mar 2007 11:34:21 -0000 1.5
>>>> +++ RFC1_PSC.dox 21 Mar 2007 17:47:27 -0000
>>>> @@ -16,8 +16,9 @@
>>>> "The GRASS Project" is defined as the GPL-licenced GIS software
>>>> known as the
>>>> Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, together with the
>>>> surrounding
>>>> -development, distribution and promotion infrastructure
>>>> currently headquarted
>>>> -at ITC-irst, Trento, Italy.
>>>> +development, distribution and promotion infrastructure
>>>> currently hosted (as
>>>> +of March 2007) by the IRST centre, Trento, Italy and Intevation
>>>> GmbH,
>>>> +Osnabrück, Germany.
>>>> \section tor Terms of Reference
>>>> -------------------------------------------
>>>> But IMHO that's really cumbersome. In response to what somebody
>>>> said earlier about having to change the RFC document if the
>>>> location of the CVS server or website/mailing list hosting
>>>> changed - I don't see a problem with that. The GRASS community
>>>> is de facto defined by our mailing lists, CVS server and website
>>>> and if these are changed then that is a significant change and
>>>> it's not unreasonable to have to update the RFC in that situation.
>>>> But on the other hand nobody else seems to care that much about
>>>> this issue and as Arnulf said, other projects haven't really
>>>> addressed it so perhaps I'm being way OTT about it - and if we
>>>> don't come to agreement soon on an alternative wording and
>>>> nobody else objects then I *am* willing to eventually just
>>>> delete that headquarted bit and simplify the whole description.
>>>>> 2. I just noticed that it does not say how the PSC comes into
>>>>> being. In our
>>>>> case, it was a general vote of the GRASS user community,
>>>>> following a
>>>>> nomination period. Does a PSC member serve for a limited or
>>>>> unlimited term?
>>>> The section at the end "Composition of the Committee" defines
>>>> ("hard-codes", if you will ;) the initial PSC. We used the
>>>> voting on the mailing list to determine who is in the initial
>>>> PSC but that was in effect just a guidance measure - this
>>>> document is what really determines that, as I understand it. And
>>>> there deliberately is no minimum/maximum number of PSC members
>>>> nor term of service - changes to composition are just handled
>>>> from now on by voting on the PSC list.
>>>> A side note on how the PSC assumes "control" over GRASS - it's
>>>> related to the first point really - GRASS *is* the codebase in
>>>> CVS, mailing lists and website. So as long as the current
>>>> maintainers of those (Bernhard and Markus, I suppose) agree to
>>>> maintain them in accordance with the wishes of the PSC, that's
>>>> enough, I think. Maybe this should be more explicit?
>>>> Right. As Arnulf said, we should be voting on this. Let me make
>>>> it a formal proposal then. I propose, that subject to consensus
>>>> on the list over the wording of the definition of the GRASS
>>>> project, that we adopt the rest of RFC1 and RFC3 as currently in
>>>> CVS, to be official guidance documents for the operation of the
>>>> PSC. And with the four working days - we have until 7:30pm
>>>> Central European Time on Tuesday 27th March to discuss and vote
>>>> on this.
>>>> I would like to give it a +1 - in accordance with the voting
>>>> guidelines (+1 means willing to support the implementation) I
>>>> will do my best to maintain the documents in CVS and try and
>>>> make what I meant by the various forms of words clearer if there
>>>> is any dispute.
>>>> Now, we only need +2 and no vetos to pass it so please don't
>>>> feel obliged to vote a +1 if you're not sure if you have time to
>>>> "support the implementation" of the two new RFCs. Of course if
>>>> you do think these are really great documents and will make
>>>> GRASS much better and are enthusiastic to work with them etc.
>>>> etc. then by all means vote +1!! ;) I just feel the voting
>>>> process becomes a bit meaningless if everyone rushes to put in
>>>> their +1.
>>>> Actually I really feel like such a pedant now; hope it doesn't
>>>> come across like that :)
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Paul
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> grass-psc mailing list
>>>> grass-psc at grass.itc.it
>>>> http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grass-psc
>>>
>>>
>
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